Editorials

Self questioning as truth hunt

Courage very often is about the ability to admit guilt. Quite the opposite of this would be the habit of shifting blame and responsibility for failures to others. It is rather unfortunate, but the characteristic feature of our political leadership in modern times seems to be more akin to the latter. But the consolation is, the fault is not entirely theirs alone. It is in many ways a general face of modern politics as such. Few did however rise above it, and in this sense absolved themselves of this institutionalized sin, even as most others resorted to buttressing their consciences to suppress and even stone-wall this inner voice. The “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” of Nelson Mandela’s South Africa is an example of the former. It represented a journey of conscience into the past by a traumatized and vivisected people to attempt to undo past wrongs and misunderstandings, as if in a ritual exorcism of demons that have haunted them all. Following his example, Peru did a similar ritual by forming its own “Truth Commission” in the aftermath of the bloody “Shining Path” revolution, to try and understand the conditions and factors that led to the uprising by the country’s downtrodden, mostly non-White, native peasant communities, and the savagely brutal methods with which the Peruvian government put it down. The whole purpose of such exercises is to find out the what went wrong where and who was responsible, not with the intent of witch-hunting and finger pointing, but with the spirit of reconciliation and accommodation, so as to jointly architecture a better future. The findings would also help to fashion corrective measures to ensure past mistakes do not become endemic.

Manipur today needs such commissions on very many issues. Leaving aside the grander questions of “identity and its related conflicts” or “ethnic nationalism and its complications and consequences”, there are many routine but all the same vital areas that deserve honest probes into the collective conscience of our society. Take the instance of the deteriorating standards of education in the state. Wouldn’t a collective journey of conscience with a “Truth Commission” in the driver’s seat, be fruitful? Disturbing questions like, how has the standard of our educational institutes dropped so miserably in the past few decades? Have merit and aptitude been systematically short-circuited in the selection procedures of education imparters and administrators? How have students politics come to be so divested from academics? Are the thousands of graduates and postgraduates the state’s educational institutes churn out each year, market-worthy in this competitive globalized job environment? Can they hope to have a fair share of the sunshine areas of the modern economy, or have they been equipped by our education system for subordinate positions only?

These questions and more like them will not be comfortable for many, but for the sake of posterity, they must be faced now. There can be little hope otherwise, and indications are, vested interests within the establishment, eager to make quick bucks, will see to it that the flaws remain for them to manipulate. How many more decades of listless life the state would be condemned to by such selfish interests, is anybody’s guess. As to the general standards of modern skills and knowledge our colleges provide our graduates and postgraduates, nobody will know better than by employers in specialized private sector enterprises which today have some presence in the state too. In these institutes, degrees are not official passports to jobs. All that would be asked for are skills, aptitude and experience. The reason for the rush for government jobs alone in states like Manipur is also partly this exacting criteria for qualification for private sector jobs, the other important part being the poor resources of the fledgling private sector here, and their inability to match government jobs in terms of service securities and salaries. But supposing a rich multinational company were to become interested in opening headquarters here in anticipation of benefits from a marriage of the ASEAN and SAARC economies, would the human resource pool in the state be enough to feed its needs? If not, they would surely have to draw their needs from other pools of resources outside the state, leaving the locals to, as the saying goes, bark like the dogs as the caravan passes by. It is better to ask these questions now and answer them, before we are left with the rude shock of allowing opportunities that land on our doorsteps to go waste for the want of appropriate education.

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